Made of Stardust
by TiTivillus
Summary: Maybe the bunker wasn't entirely theirs anymore. But the night sky still was. Season 14. Hurt!Sam. PTSD!Sam. Protective!Dean.


**Title:** Made Of Stardust

 **Summary:** Maybe the bunker wasn't entirely theirs anymore. But the night sky still was. Season 14. Hurt!Sam. PTSD!Sam. Protective!Dean.

 **Warnings:** Spoilers up to (and incl.) season 14, bad language, injury, non-graphic mentions of blood loss and fever, blasphemy.

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own a thing.

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It's not so much the lack of privacy that bothers Dean when the group of strangers crowds up every inch of the bunker, filling their underground lair with incessant chatter and the clinking of beer bottles after a job gone right. It's not even the way they don't clean up after themselves, leaving a scattered trail of take-out boxes and bloody bandages in their wake like Hansel and Gretel left breadcrumbs in the Blackwood. And it's definitely, a hundred percent _not_ the way Sam spends most of his time these days with his doe-eyed bunch of Apocalypse-survivors that bothers Dean.

His mind might have been of questionable mental stability for a pretty long time now, but pining for his little brother's undivided attention is something Dean will never, in a million years, not on his deathbed, not even under the influence of torture, admit to. It totally isn't a thought he entertains.

Thing is, he's proud of Sammy. His chest fills to the brim with all kinds of mushy warm feelings whenever he walks into the mapping room to hear Sam gush about his geeky expertise on how to behead Vampires without making too big of a mess and on how to get creative lighting up a Wendigo with nothing but a lighter and some steel wool. His brother is the best to learn from, without a doubt. Sometimes he still can't believe that the little snot-nosed, floppy-haired nerd of his brother had turned into this… this role-model of everything their family has ever stood for. Sam is more than just a leader to these people. He's an idol to them. And rightfully so.

But Sam taking on a leadership role has lately come at the price of his companionship and whenever Dean allows himself to wallow in it, he feels a breeze of solitude engulf his soul after a whole day without even catching a glimpse of his brother. He knows it's ridiculous, but with each hunter demanding more of Sam's attention, Dean feels more in need of hearing Sam's breathing next to him in some no-name motel room. With each and every one of Sam's speeches, Dean wants an hours' worth of time spent driving down the highway next to his brother, talking about everything and nothing. With every time they call Sam 'chief', Dean wants to call Sam 'Sammy' just out of spite - because he's privy to the privilege and they're not.

Talk about codependency. Dean is pretty sure if he looks up the word in a thesaurus, the name 'Winchester' would show up right next to it.

He tells himself that it's just some stupid phase. That it's good for them to have a bit of distance. Natural. Healthy. 'Normal'. It's what Sam has always wanted. Dean will simply have to accept the fact that Sam is a grown adult, a phenomenal hunter and that he's more than capable of taking care of himself without having his big brother around all the time.

Except for when he's not.

"DEAAAAN!"

It's Bobby's voice that shakes the walls of his room late at night one day.

A thousand fears sweep through Dean as the jolts up in bed —of gunshot wounds, and Werewolf bites, and bear traps and witches—but it's not until he remembers that Sam has been out on a hunt with one of the younger, less experienced hunters that he leaped into action, bare feet slapping against the icy tiles that led to the mapping room with a bone-gripping panic.

"It's Sam." The guy – Rich, Rick, Randy? – begins to ramble in an apologetic voice and Dean can barely even hear him over the sound of his own blood rushing through his head. He grips the man's arm hard enough to leave bruises, bestows him with a glare intense enough to burn right through his skin.

"Where is he?"

The guy takes a second too long to answer, mouth flapping uselessly as he tries to form words and then Dean is _on_ him, grabbing two fistfuls of the guy's shirt and slamming him roughly back against the mapping table. He leans in close enough to feel the quiver of fear in his hitched breath and see his pupils widen. "Where. Is. He?"

Dean drinks in the catch in his breath from the stranglehold and increases the pressure, hoping like hell that the guy doesn't underestimate what Dean is capable of where Sam was concerned.

"Dean, let him go!" It's Bobby again and Dean lifts his head just long enough to throw him a glance. His hold doesn't budge from the kid pinned beneath him until Bobby rounds the table with a frustrated eye-roll. "Damn it, boy. Let him go! He didn't do your brother any harm, you hear me?"

Dean can't hear anything past the roaring of his own pulse. He needs to see Sam.

"Where's my bro—"

"Right here," Bobby says, jerking his head back over his shoulder. Dean peeks past the older man's body to where Mary and Jack and a whole bunch of strangers are standing hunched over a curled-up figure. They are speaking in hushed voices as if trying to appease a trapped animal. Dean feels a protective streak so fierce it scares him when he catches a glimpse of the curled-up ball of flannel and brown hair in the far end of the library. Sam. Sam on the floor. Curled up like a child, backed up into a corner of his own mind.

The change in Dean is as sudden as a catching flame, worn down to the sudden realization of what must have happened. "Did he get locked up somewhere? Trapped?"

The hunter gives a shaky nod in reply. "Door slammed shut behind him. It was a freezer. He wasn't in for long, but he's been in shock ever since."

Shock.

These people might know what the Apocalypse is like, but they don't know that being trapped in a cold storage room felt like to a man that had spent an eternity trapped in the cage with Lucifer. They don't know that hellfire is ice cold, freezing the blood in your veins and splintering your organs like ice.

Dean lets go of the hunter with a look that is nothing short of a death threat. "You pick someone else to team up with from here on out, you understand me?" he growls and it is a guttural sound, so low and deep and filled with threat that the guy doesn't even dare to meet Dean's eyes afterward. "I see you anywhere near him again and I'll make whatever Michael did in your universe look like a walk in the _park_ compared to what I'm gonna do to you."

"Dean," Mary warned from across the room and Dean backs off the man, allowing him to slump against the mapping table in a boneless, trembling heap.

Dean crosses over to Sam and barely spares them all a glance in passing. "Back off and give him some space."

Sam is sweaty and shivering under a thin, scratchy blanket they have bundled him up in, his eyes squeezed shut tightly as he rocks back and forth.

Dean's arm curls around him on autopilot, an omnipresent protective force. "Sammy," he murmurs, his arms heavy on Sam's back. "Sam, let me look at you."

Sam tries to crawl further under his blanket, murmuring silent words to himself as though he isn't even there, doesn't hear a word Dean is saying. His cheeks were colored a feverish tinge of red from the cold and the exertion.

Dean grabs Sam's hand, holding it with all the strength he can muster.

Every time he has to talk Sam out of one of these panic attacks, he finds his heart wedged tighter in his throat. Dean is never so close to losing himself than in those moments. He's harsh to Sam because he's afraid that kindness won't be enough to snap his brother out of his haze. He tries to lure him back to reality with harsh commands and authority, with a slap to the face or a shake to the shoulder.

Tonight, Dean finds himself incapable of harsh words or rough gestures.

Sammy is too far gone and Dean falls back into a tenderness he hasn't thought himself capable of since their childhood years. At the end, he will do anything to keep Sammy by his side, even engaging in a big scene in front of a whole bunch of strangers that don't know a thing about Sam or Dean or how much they need each other.

"Don't you dare," Dean whispers fiercely, hands splayed over Sam's pale cheeks and throat, testing the feeble pulse there. Dean can't imagine a life without Sam by his side, no matter how close they'd come to losing each other in the past."Don't you dare leave me alone."

It takes a while, but after a few minutes, Sam's lashes start to flutter and his hazel eyes owlishly peek up at him from behind a curtain of bangs. "N-ot alone."

Dean swipes Sam's bangs out of his face like he used to do when they were children. He can't help but smile. "I'll hold you to that, Samantha."

If Sam wasn't still shaking in his arms, Dean would tell Mary to bring the Impala around. He would bundle Sam up and take him out on the open road, where they belong. Out where they have always been most at ease with themselves and each other and the whole messed-up world around them.

But as it is, Sam's skin is cold to the touch and his lips are tinged an unhealthy shade of blue and his gaze is far, far away in a time and place that Dean would give just about anything to erase forever from his little brother's mind.

There's a telescope next to them and from where he's crouched down next to his brother, hugging Sam to his chest, Dean catches an eyeful of the night sky above, a myriad of dancing lights illuminating the inky blackness outside.

Sam's fingers find their way into Dean's flannel as he settles his cheek against the jut of Dean's collarbone. He's subconsciously seeking out Dean's heartbeat with his ear, a comfort as ingrained in him as his need for oxygen. He mumbled something against Dean's neck and settles down again, eyes falling closed in sleep.

Dean looks around the bunker, at the take-out boxes and laptops and hunter's journals strewn across the library table. He looks at Mary and Bobby's dumbfounded faces, at the mess of jackets and shoes and the arsenal of weapons scattered around the mapping room. And he thinks how – strangely enough – none of it matters. None of it matters at all. Not as long as this right there - propped up against each other, with only the stars staring down upon them - this is where Sam and Dean find their own version of peace.

 **The End.**


End file.
